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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Necessary_Walrus1703 on 2024-10-23 19:51:16+00:00.

I remember the day I found it as if it were yesterday.

The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows across the flea market on the outskirts of our little town.

 It was the kind of day where everything seemed still, the heat lingering, pressing down on everything.

The dry, hot breeze stirred the dust, kicking up tiny whirlwinds as I walked through the narrow aisles with my dog Charlie, scanning the rows of vendors with growing frustration.

The farm wasn’t doing well this season. Pests, birds, and rodents were tearing through the crops with an almost savage determination.

Clara and I had tried everything—scare tactics, traps, sprays—but nothing seemed to keep them away.

 It was as if the very land itself was rebelling against us. Sometimes, I wonder if this was an act of sabotage by Mr Monroe, who had been greedily eyeing my land for a while now.  

But no matter the cause, the outcome was the same.

The crops were wilting, the soil dry despite the endless hours I’d spent watering them, and every morning brought more damage, more destruction. The farm was struggling, and so were we. We weren’t just facing financial ruin—this was ancestral land, passed down through 7 generations. Losing it would mean losing a piece of ourselves.

Clara’s patience was wearing thin, though she never showed it. But I saw it in the way she pressed her lips together when the kids weren’t looking, or the tightness in her shoulders when we sat down at the kitchen table to try and budget for the week.

We couldn’t afford another bad season. The stress was eating at both of us, turning our once lively dinner table conversations into tense silences.

I was desperate—grasping at straws, literally, trying to find something, anything that might help. I figured maybe this flea market would have something useful, though I didn’t know what exactly I was looking for.

That’s when I saw it.

Tucked between a pile of rusted tools, frayed ropes, and battered knickknacks was a scarecrow.

 It was old, worn out, and tattered. The kind of thing that had been through too many summers and winters, far more than it should have survived.

Its burlap face was faded, sun-bleached, and split in places, the frayed edges fluttering in the wind like dead skin peeling from an old wound. Its clothes—a pair of ripped overalls and a threadbare flannel shirt—hung limp from its crooked frame, remnants of an era long forgotten.

Despite its ragged appearance, something about it drew me in and I couldn’t look away.

Maybe it was the unnatural way it stood out among the clutter, or maybe it was the way the light seemed to dim slightly when I looked at it.

I couldn’t shake the feeling it was watching me, as if its dark hollow eyes were tracking my every move. And the crooked, stitched smile stretched unnaturally wide, almost up to its ears, as though it knew a secret I didn’t.

The scarecrow seemed to catch Charlie’s fancy too; he sniffed it cautiously before placing his paw on it, almost as if testing whether it was real.

I snapped out of my thoughts when a man’s voice suddenly cut through the eerie silence.

He was a small, hunched figure standing behind the stall, half-hidden in the shadows beneath a wide-brimmed hat. His leathery skin, deeply lined with wrinkles, hinted at a long, hard life. His face remained mostly obscured, his eyes concealed in the shadow of the hat, making it impossible to guess his age.

An instinctual urge told me to turn away—both the scarecrow and the man unsettled me in a way I couldn’t explain.

“You’re looking for something to keep the birds away, aren’t you?” he said without glancing up, his voice gravelly and dry. There was an accent, too, faint but old-fashioned, as though it belonged to another era.

I blinked, startled by his accuracy.

How could he know? I thought to myself.

I nodded slowly, unsure of what to say, my mouth suddenly dry. Then he looked up, meeting my gaze for a fleeting moment.

“This here’ll do the trick,” he said, gesturing toward the scarecrow with a bony finger. “No birds, no rodents, no pests. You’ll see.”

I hesitated, taking a closer look at the scarecrow.

 It looked as if it would fall apart if I so much as touched it. The wind tugged at its loose stitches, making them sway slightly, and I noticed a faint odor—musty, like damp earth mixed with decay.

“Does it work?” I asked, my voice filled with scepticism. I didn’t want to come off as too desperate, but I was.

The man grinned, revealing a set of yellowed, uneven teeth. “It works,” he said with an air of certainty that felt unsettling. “Better than you think. Just set it up in your field. It’ll do the rest.”

My gut twisted with unease and despite the creeping dread, I handed over the little cash I had left.

The man took it without another word.

I heaved the scarecrow into the bed of my truck, its hollow, straw-filled body thudding against the metal as I started my drive back to the farm.

When I got home, the sun was setting, casting an orange hue across the farm. I glanced toward the house, where the warm light of the kitchen spilled through the windows. Clara was inside, cooking dinner, while the kids helped her set the table. The smell of roasting chicken wafted into the air.

Charlie and I were immediately greeted by Sir Sunrise, a rooster, who quietly came and perched himself on the back of the truck as I parked near the front porch. He observed in silence as I unloaded the scarecrow.

Sir Sunrise earned his name from my 8-year-old son, Luke, thanks to his remarkable habit of crowing at exactly 6 AM every morning. It didn’t matter if it was pouring rain, the middle of winter, or a cloudy morning when the sun didn’t show—he always knew when it was time.

He’d march up and down the porch, his triumphant “cock-a-doodle-doo” echoing for a full minute, ensuring the entire Smith household woke to his call.

Oddly enough, that was the only time he ever crowed, even though he spent the rest of the day busily wandering the farm.

Even stranger was the quiet, almost unspoken friendship he shared with Charlie. The two seemed to enjoy each other’s company in a way that always surprised me.

I hoisted the scarecrow onto my shoulders and made my way toward the field.

The crops swayed in the soft evening breeze, rows of corn and wheat stretching out before me like sentinels.

I chose a spot right in the middle—far enough from the house but close enough that I could still watch it from the upstairs window. I attached the scarecrow to a wooden pole that was already planted deep in the soil.

It stood crooked and eerie, its burlap face staring blankly at the sky.

Sir Sunrise inaugurated the new addition in the field by performing a couple of customary laps around the pole before taking off, with Charlie eagerly chasing after him.

My eyes, however, drifted toward Mr Monroe’s factory in the distance. For years, he had been acquiring land from my neighbors, and was determined to buy my property as well. He wasn’t pleased when I turned him down.

Ever since then, my farm has suffered—my crops have been constantly under attack, making me wonder if he was in any way involved. But without proof, all I could do was continue my work and hope things would eventually turn around.

I took one last look at the scarecrow before walking back home to join my wife and kids for dinner.

That night, sleep didn’t come easily. I tossed and turned, my mind replaying the image of the scarecrow in the field—motionless, seemingly unthreatening, yet somehow menacing.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that stitched smile, wide and knowing, as though it was waiting for something.

Was I expecting some sort of miracle from it?

Is that why I felt this knot in my stomach—because deep down, I knew I was acting out of desperation and not thinking rationally.

The wind howled outside, rattling the shutters, but beyond that, there was silence.

No crows cawing, no rustling in the crops. Just an unsettling, unnatural silence.

Meanwhile, Clara slept soundly beside me. I noticed the cut above her eyebrow even in the pale moonlight, a scar from her youth.

Despite her challenging childhood, she had a gift for finding peace in chaos, while I remained a light sleeper, needing exhaustion to fall into a deep slumber.

I rolled over, pulling the blanket tighter around me and eventually drifted to sleep.

When morning finally came, I stepped outside, half-expecting to find the fields torn apart like before. But they were untouched. Not a single stalk was damaged.

I looked toward the scarecrow, still standing in the same spot, and felt a wave of relief wash over me. Maybe the old peddler was right. Maybe it really was that effective.

A couple more days went by, and the crops remained unharmed. Not a single bird or rodent dared to come near them. For the first time in months, I felt a glimmer of hope—a lightness in my chest that I hadn’t felt in ages.

I didn’t fully understand how a scarecrow could make such a difference—the results defied logic—but I wasn’t about to question it now.

Clara noticed the shift in my mood too and began to believe again herself. She watched our children, Emma and Luke, play among the crops, their laughter ringing through the air like music after a long silence.

It was as if the scarecrow had brought back more than just safety for the crops—it had brought back hope.

But on the fourth night, things began to ta…

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